Rare Private Tour of Seattle's long-closed Living Computer Museum

I was on the team that decommissioned the CDC 6500 at Purdue University back in 1989. We didn't care about that old machine, since we were getting our own Cray to replace it. If we had only known that it would have been preserved by Cray and displayed at this Museum later, we would have done things a little differently. I did get to help on the restoration because I wrote the two dead start routines to boot it. If you look at the Dead Start panel, you'll see white and yellow tags that indicate the two different dead start configurations, which selected the boot devices.

Kind of heartbreaking that Mr Allen didn't make provisions to set up a museum endowment sufficient to keep it running (or hire a team to fund it) before his demise. So much labor and love were put into the restorations, it's sad to see it all up for auction like a sheriff's sale.

Wow. I realize this started as a particular person's vision, but it's really hard not to be positively enraged that the estate is just auctioning all of this off, especially after witnessing all of the apparent hard work that went into taking care of these things for all to enjoy. Astonishing and sad. Thanks for the tour.

I'm stunned that no one has stepped up to keep this collection together and open to the public. 😢

I can''t imagine how all the volunteers feel about the hours they put in restoring those computers.

Thank heavens at least you captured footage of that great place. I'm an old fogey that worked on the CDC 3100 many years ago as a technician. Saw all the generations of computers come and go through the ages. What a travesty that this treasure will be lost forever. So sad.

I visited the museum a few years back. It was so amazing to see all these machines that I read about working and available to actually sit down and use. This brought back so many memories from my childhood. It is very sad to hear that the machines are being sold off and not kept as a collection.

The museum staff did an excellent job of cleaning and detailing this stuff, the condition of everything is stunning.

This museum was one of the most important places in Seattle to me. I took many friends here when they visited from out of town, and I'm genuinely so distressed at the loss of this incredible resource. I was completely fascinated by the PLATO system they had there, and was delighted to use their Apple Lisa. I hate Jody Allen more than a little for liquidating this museum's collection and selling it for tens of thousands of dollars on the Christie's auction site. Word to the buyer of the Lisa: Its CRT is on its last legs. It's going to die. It's not worth $35,000.

Dave is still young at heart.

I was today years old that I learned this place is closed. I visited here before my cruise to Alaska in summer of 2017 and had such a great time!

Wow, what a shame this collection is being dismantled. I was a few years post big iron and my entry point started on an Atari 800. I had no idea this was a place, and now I wished I had. Thanks for the tour and good memories Dave.

Well, as someone that helped donate a working computer to the museum, one where I'd been one of the main OS developers for the prior 20 years, I can say fairly authoritatively that there is considerable sadness at the collection being parted out. I'd hoped to see the system again one last time in your short tour, but I'm not really surprised I didn't.

I live in Portland, Oregon and got to visit the museum twice before it closed. The last time I was there I was chatting with one of the engineers maintaining the KL-10 and got invited to GO INTO THE BASEMENT ! This was where the stockpile of computer projects not yet started were stored. I thought I was in Disneyland. Row upon row of PDP-11's (11/70 included), IBM System 360's and 370's, IBM 1130, Univac systems, a Sequent Computer Systems system, disk drives, line printers, Datapoint systems... the list is endless. I don't know if these non-functional systems are included in the auction as I don't know where to get an auction listing. Just as Dave is lusting after an 11/70, I am lusting after the PDP-12 (functional) complete with dual DecTapes and A/D panel and their PDP-7 which was running BSD Unix last time I visited. I am just heartbroken the place is shut down forever. A LOT of nostalgia there ...

I'm so heartbroken that the museum had closed. I was fortunate enough to purchase a membership and would visit often playing with restored computers from my youth in the '80s. After the museum closed, and it's future in doubt, prompted me to start my own little retro computer collection of an Apple IIe, Mac Plus, Commodore 64, and IBM PCjr. These systems were so influential for my love of computing and technology. LCM you will be missed!

Still insane to me that the little brick I'm holding in my hand and watching this on is orders of magnitude more powerful than those room sized supercomputers.

When this was opened, it was my favorite museum. The machines they had in there were amazing. Really bummed it ended up having to close.

I miss this place so much. I have some great pictures of me and my daughter with the Cray. Well she looks very bored, but I'm having a great time! :D

As far as I know, some of that collection is going to The Computer Museum of America in Roswell, GA. Lonnie Mimms went to Seattle to see what he could haul away for his archives according to a VCF post on Discord.

Man, it's sad that this is closing. Hopefully museums will pick some of these up...